The Ministry of Digital Affairs will require central government agencies to file standardized disclosure forms for every generative-AI pilot before this month’s legislative hearings on the AI Basic Act, according to briefing materials circulated to department CIOs.
The forms ask agencies to list training data sources, human review steps, and citizen-facing touchpoints for chatbots that summarize regulations or assist with permit applications. MODA said the registry builds on Version 1.0 of its AI Risk Taxonomy and Assessment Framework, which the Executive Yuan approved in July.
Why now
Taiwan’s AI Basic Act took effect in January, but most operational rules still depend on sector regulators. Lawmakers from both major parties have demanded an inventory of live government bots after several municipalities deployed large language models without publishing bias tests.
Digital Minister aides told reporters the disclosure push is separate from procurement rules issued earlier this year, which focused on vendor contracts. The new forms target in-house experiments, including bots fine-tuned on Mandarin corpora held by individual ministries.
What agencies must reveal
Each submission includes the model provider, whether inference runs on domestic clouds, and the official responsible for incident response. Agencies must also note if outputs could influence eligibility decisions, a category MODA classifies as higher risk under the framework.
Civil society groups welcomed the transparency but said penalties for incomplete filings remain unclear. The Taiwan Association for Human Rights asked MODA to publish a public dashboard rather than keeping the registry internal to government networks.
Industry reaction
Local software vendors that sell sovereign AI stacks to government see the registry as a pipeline indicator. Startups offering red-team services for Mandarin prompts hope ministries will outsource testing rather than build tools in-house.
For citizens, the practical effect may be slower rollouts: several agencies paused external-facing bots last quarter until legal teams signed off. MODA officials said the December deadline for initial filings should not delay services that already passed privacy impact assessments, but committees may summon ministers if inventories reveal undisclosed pilots.
Legislative calendar
Judiciary and Technology committees scheduled joint sessions for late October, giving ministers two weeks to compile inventories. Opposition lawmakers said they will request live demos of any citizen-facing bot that auto-drafts legal advice.